People Behind the Science

2 downloads 60 Views 215KB Size Report
Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace both traveled all ... noted that Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace “had .... tant professor in the School of Education at Drake.
People W Behind the Science

By Jerrid Kruse and Sarah Borzo

Using historical science stories to teach about scientists and how science works

e diligently encourage our students to think and act like scientists. Making observations, discussing ideas with others, designing fair tests, and creating new ways to organize and display data are regular aspects of our students’ work. However, we want our students to do more than think like scientists, we want them to think about scientists. Although we consistently ask students to reflect on their own strategies and thinking, we find that having students reflect on stories about real scientists helps students better engage in discussions about how science works and what scientists are like. In addition to meeting National Science Education Standards (NSES) related to the history and nature of science (NOS), reading or hearing about real scientists helps students connect with science emotionally. We have even noticed increased student interest in science concepts during history of science discussions. Toward these efforts, and to tackle misconceptions, we have made use of historical science stories in our classes. Below we describe how we developed and used a historical science story during an upper elementary life science unit.

History and Nature of Science Instruction Nature of science understanding requires consideration of the processes, assumptions, and values of science. That is, how and why scientists carry out their work. For elementary students, the NSES note: “Students can learn some things about scientific inquiry and significant people from history, which will provide a foundation for the development of sophisticated ideas related to the history and nature of science that will be developed in later years. Through the use of short stories, films, videos, and other examples, elementary teachers can introduce interesting historical examples of women and men (including minorities and people with disabilities) who have made contributions to science. The stories can highlight how these scientists worked. . .” (NRC 1996, p. 141). Yet, simply using historical stories will not likely lead to increased understanding of how science works. Students’ attention must be drawn to specific ideas related to the processes of science exemplified in the stories (Abd-ElKhalick and Lederman 2000). Rather than using history alone to teach NOS ideas, we should encourage students to reflect on a continuum of experiences, including puzzlesolving games, students’ own investigations, and historical stories (Clough 2006). 51  Science and Children

December 2010  51

Figure 1.

Studying animals science story. Imagine your favorite animal. Where does the animal live? What does the animal eat? Some scientists study how animals live in the wild. This kind of science is called ecology. Aristotle and Theophrastus were probably some of the first ecologists. They lived almost 2,400 years ago. Theophrastus studied the way animals acted in nature. He watched how animals behaved with other animals. He also watched how animals lived in their habitats. Two thousand years later, people were still studying animals. In the 1700s people traveled the world. They wanted to explore and trade goods with faroff lands. Scientists often came on these journeys. Two scientists from Europe noticed something interesting. They noticed that the plants they found in other places were not the same plants they saw in France and Germany. About that same time, a Dutch scientist studied how animals and plants work together. He was curious about how energy moves through nature. This scientist came up with the idea of the food chain. The food chain helps us understand what animals eat. Knowing what different animals eat can help us understand how energy moves through nature. In Sweden, Carl Linnaeus studied living things another way. Linnaeus saw that many living things have features in common. He used his observations to put plants and animals into groups. One hundred years before, John Ray organized animals into groups based on their teeth and feet. For example, he could connect giraffes and pigs because they both have hoofed feet.    • Why does putting animals into groups require creativity? In the 1800s, people were still trying to learn about animals. Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace both traveled all over the world. They collected samples to study. Wallace lost his work and samples in a shipwreck. These two men had many of the same ideas about how animals change and adapt. Darwin became more famous because he could show more evidence than Wallace. 

52  Science and Children

In the 1920s, Aldo Leopold was a scientist who wanted to protect the wilderness. Ranchers and farmers in New Mexico were upset. The farmers wanted to kill all the bears, mountain lions, and wolves in the state. They said that these animals hurt or killed their farm animals. Leopold did not want to do this. He thought killing the predators would cause problems for other animals.   • Why do you think Leopold and the ranchers thought differently about animals? Louis Leakey was a scientist from Kenya. He was interested in nature. He thought that scientists should go into the wild to watch animals. In the 1960s, Leakey worked with three women to study animals like this. Jane Goodall from England studied chimpanzees in Africa. Dian Fossey from America went to Africa to study gorillas. Birute’ Galdikas from Canada studied orangutans in Borneo. These women lived with the animals. They learned about how animals live together in the wild. • Many people think scientists work by themselves in a laboratory. How are the scientists in this story different?  • Why do you think each group of scientists is trying different strategies to study nature?   Scientists have tried all kinds of ways to learn more about animals. Some went into nature to study animals. Some watched from far away. Others lived with the animals. Even today people study animals. There are many scientists this story did not talk about. Scientists often have to work together to study animals. They work together to figure out what their observations mean. Nature is like a big puzzle. Scientists are trying to figure out how the pieces fit.  • Some people think science is done very quickly. After reading this story, how long do you think science takes? Explain. • What does this story tell you about the people who do science?

People Behind the Science Some ideas worth teaching students about the process and NOS include the following (Clough 2008; McComas and Olson 1998; Abd-El-Khalick, Bell, and Lederman 1998): • • • • • • •

Science is collaborative Science uses evidence Science requires creativity and imagination Scientists use many different methods in their work Scientific ideas change over time; science is never finished Development of scientific ideas takes time Science does not follow a single universal scientific method • Many people from diverse backgrounds have contributed to scientific knowledge Although many of these ideas might seem intuitive or even obvious, popular media and curricular materials often promote misconceptions. For example, many textbooks have a section on “the scientific method” even though the history of science makes clear that scientists use nearly any strategy to collect and make sense of evidence. Because of inaccurate messages with which students are

Creating and Telling Your Own Stories Although we chose to create a written story for our students, others might decide to verbally tell stories to their students. Regardless of the delivery method, encouraging students to mentally wrestle with what the scientists are doing and why scientists make decisions is important. Rather than assuming students will realize scientists are creative, try asking, “What parts of the story required the scientists to be creative?” Perhaps you have found a website or book that uses historical stories. We urge you to use caution as many stories we have come across may promote misconceptions regarding how science works. Below are some general suggestions for creating or evaluating stories you might use in your classroom: • Science content is present and appropriate for grade level • Appropriate balance between science content and historical account is maintained • Story should demonstrate modifications to ideas over time • Avoid stories that indicate science ideas are developed or accepted quickly • Multiple investigative strategies are implemented throughout the story • Multiple individuals from multiple backgrounds are present in the story

bombarded, we work to help students develop accurate views of science.

Developing a Story Not only do stories help us meet history and NOS standards, the stories help students develop deeper understanding of science content. The story described in this article (Figure 1) focused on life science standards and highlighted historical figures who studied animals in their environment and played a role in developing ideas related to classification and relationships among animals. To create this story, we started by conducting internet and library searches on the “history of ecology” and “taxonomy” and the people behind the ideas. Our first search result was a wikipedia entry on “history of ecology.” From this entry we gained an overview and identified individuals on whom we could conduct further research. As we searched for information we kept in mind what we wanted students to learn from the story. Because we wanted students to understand that scientists come from many backgrounds we tried to identify scientists from different countries. Also, we wanted students to learn that science is collaborative, so we tried to avoid giving too much credit to any individual and tried to find examples of multiple people working together. One source concerning taxonomy focused completely on the work of Carl Linnaeus. Although Linnaeus was a key player in the story, focusing on any one person sends the message to students that science is a lonely endeavor rather than a highly collaborative undertaking. Furthermore, focusing on only one person can send the message that science ideas are thought of quickly rather than developed and modified over much time. In our research, we came across a great deal of content that is far too advanced, even for high school students. We had to carefully consider what we thought our students would be able to understand. For example, Darwin developed natural selection to explain evolution. Although we wanted to include Charles Darwin in our story, our students would not likely come to understand evolution or the complexities of Darwin’s evidence for natural selection. Therefore, we simply noted that Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace “had many of the same ideas about how animals change and adapt.” Because we wanted to keep the science content of the story at an appropriate level for our upper elementary students, we were not overly concerned about including every nuance concerning the life sciences. Instead we worked to create a story our students could understand and would be useful for drawing student attention to NOS ideas. Our purpose aligned closely with the NSES, which state: December 2010  53

Figure 2.

A student’s reflection on a historical science story.

their thinking during this activity to the thinking of scientists in the story.

Keeping Track of Ideas To introduce the historical science story, we asked students to describe what a scientist is and does. We recorded these ideas on the board to revisit during the reading and discussion. Recording all student contributions helped us break down students’ misconceptions about scientists. Some of the students’ initial ideas included: • • • •

scientists are smart, scientists are old guys with crazy hair, scientists invent things and create new stuff, and scientists work alone in a laboratory.

As the class read and discussed, we often stopped to revisit the list about scientists that was on the board. This task required students to reflect and rethink their conceptions of science and scientists. In addition to crossing off some inaccurate ideas, students added ideas such as • • • • • •

“The intention of [the history and nature of science standard] is not to develop an overview of the complete history of science. Rather, historical examples are used to help students understand scientific inquiry, the nature of scientific knowledge, and the interactions between science and society” (NRC 1996, p. 170).

Using Historical Science Stories Below we describe how we used the story (see NSTA Connection) to encourage students to mentally wrestle with NOS and how science works.

Concrete Experience To prepare students to reflect on how science works, we wanted them to gain some experience thinking like the scientists in the story. We gave each group of 3–4 students 10 pictures of various animals and asked them to organize the animals into 3–5 categories based on characteristics. After some work time, the class discussed strategies they used to create categories and struggles they encountered. Later, during discussion of the story, we asked students to compare 54  Science and Children

scientists are creative and use their imagination, science takes a long time, scientists use teamwork, you don’t have to be a genius, scientists have to be problem solvers, and scientists try different things to study animals.

Encouraging Reflective Discussion To engage students in discussions, we asked them to explain passages in their own words or asked open-ended questions that required explanation. For example, during one discussion about the work of Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey and Biruté Galdikas we asked students, “How would living with animals be different than studying them in a lab or zoo?” We encouraged multiple ideas by providing extensive wait time after our questions and after student responses. Rather than providing our own insight when students struggled with ideas, we encouraged students to wrestle with complex questions by having them discuss with their peers in small groups. During small-group discussions we walked around the room to listen to student conversations and gain insight into student thinking that we might use as the discussion progressed. Although “big idea” discussion questions were built into the story to guide discussion, we also generated questions based on students’ response to the story. Using student ideas and thinking to guide the discussion helped us more directly target students’ misconceptions and build on accurate ideas. To encourage more student ideas, we walked around the room during whole-class discussion

People Behind the Science with positive and welcoming facial expressions. To further help students feel comfortable sharing ideas in class, we tried hard to not respond negatively to students’ misconceptions. Instead, we would encourage further discussion or ask the class to use examples from the story to support or refute ideas. Through discussion and continued reference to the stories, students modified their misconceptions to more desirable views of how science works.

Assessing Student Views During the discussions, we noticed that students were making important insights related to how science works. The students adeptly stated that scientists had to use their imagination and build on other people’s ideas. Some students even came to understand that although science is a quest for answers, science is not a quest for “the” answer. Many students noted that scientists have learned a lot about animals, but there was still more to learn. Perhaps most common was that students seemed to more deeply internalize the value and role of evidence in science. To further explore student ideas after reading and discussing the stories, we had them reflect in writing (Figure 2). To guide their reflection, we asked them to write a few sentences concerning what they learned about how scientists do their work. Students made important insights that were evident in their writing. Some examples include: “The more evidence you have the more people understand you;” “You have to be creative to come up with questions, experiments, and a lot more;” and “Scientists have different methods to figure it out.” What we found most exciting after listening to student comments and reading their writing was that students seemed to gain interest in science content. After reading about how real scientists studied animals, the students wondered how they could study animals in the classroom.

Final Thoughts We use historical stories to generate discussion with our students about science and scientists. Even stories that might promote misconceptions can be used to get students thinking about how science works. For example, if a story focuses on one individual, we might ask students, “Who do you think this story is leaving out?” Stories are not instruction—they are the vehicles through which we, the teachers, raise ideas regarding how science works. n Jerrid Kruse ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in the School of Education at Drake

Connecting to the Standards This article relates to the following National Science Education Standards (NRC 1996):

Content Standards Standard A: Science as Inquiry (K–8) • Understanding about scientific inquiry

Grades K–4 Standard G: History and Nature of Science • Science as a human endeavor

Grades 5–8 Standard F: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives • Science and technology in society

Standard G: History and Nature of Science • Science as a human endeavor • Nature of science • History of science National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National science education standards. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

University in Des Moines, Iowa. Sarah Borzo is a sixth-grade science teacher at Waukee Community Schools in Waukee, Iowa.

References Abd-El-Khalick, F., R.L. Bell, and N.G. Lederman. 1998. The nature of science and instructional practice: Making the unnatural natural. Science Education 82 (4): 417–436. Abd-El-Khalick, F., and N.G. Lederman. 2000. The influence of history of science courses on students’ views of nature of science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching 37 (10): 1057–1095. Clough, M.P. 2006. Learners’ responses to the demands of conceptual change: Considerations for effective nature of science instruction. Science & Education 15 (5): 463–494. Clough, M.P. 2008. Teaching the nature of science to secondary and post-secondary students: Questions rather than tenets. California Journal of Science Education 8 (2): 31–40. McComas, W.F., and J.K. Olson. 1998. The nature of science in international science education standards documents. In The Nature of Science in Science Education: Rationales and Strategies, 41–52. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

NSTA Connection

For additional examples of the historical science stories, visit www.nsta.org/SC1012.

December 2010  55